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So I filled in a form through the Step Change website today with all my incomings/outgoings/debts etc.. The website then advised I should apply for a DRO. I knew I qualified as I have been researching DRO quite a bit recently. It is definitely something I would like to go for to sort these terrible debts that have been getting me down for months now! However, there is one little niggle I am worried about.. I currently live with my partner who owns the property. I have only been with him a year and have lived in the property for the past 6 months. All my debts are my own and the DRO is just for me. Does anyone know if this could affect my application? I really hope it doesn't

In a situation like this the intermediary would need to assess whether or not you may have any 'beneficial interest' in your partners property. This is quite a complicated topic, and I appreciate you are not named on anything. Beneficial Interest is where someone may have accrued a money interest in another person!!!8217;s property that is deemed to be an asset, based on things like, what they have contributed to the house over time. This is not an exact calculation and there is a degree of subjectivity to this but the fact that you have lived with your partner for such a short time makes this quite unlikely.

It is something that needs to be discussed in more detail, so unfortunately, I cannot completely rule it out. So, the best thing to do, is call one of the free debt charities that do the DRO applications and let them discuss it with you properly.

Stepchange and CAB do the vast majority of them. If you have an independent debt advice centre locally, then they may have intermediaries approved by the IMA, and they would be a good bet. After that there are only very small numbers done by the other authorities like CAP, National Debtline and Payplan.

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